The Kobestarr Digital Podcast

The Kobestarr Digital podcast features longform interview conversations with people who I have met since starting Kobestarr Digital as a Digital Marketing Agency. It's a business podcast with an ever so slight bias towards the world of Digital Marketing be it Inbound Marketing, Growth Hacking, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Content Marketing.
I have a lot of really interesting girls and guys lined up from freelancers through to those at the pinnacle of large businesses who are ready to share their stories with you.
If you know anyone who would be interesting to hear from please do let me know by sending an email to podcast@kobestarr.io.
Please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes in anticipation of the first episodes dropping in 10th May and come and find me personally on the Twitter @Kobestarr that's K o b e s t a rr and The agency Kobestarr Digital can be found @kobestarrDigi.
I just want to say thanks to GLPro and to Helen Zaltzman for helping me get the podcast up and running, to all my past present and future guests and to you guys for listening and telling your friends and subscribing on iTunes Ahem Subscribe! and tell your friends to subscribe!
I look forward to hearing from you all!
Bye! Kobi Omenaka

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Jörgen Sundberg and I have been exchanging Scandinavian Platitudes since he and his company "Link Humans" moved into our office space during the summer.

Jörgen places importance on communication, no more so than in social media. He drops by for the latest episode of the Kobestarr Digital Podcast to talk about all things digital marketing.

Having worked in the industry for 6 years, he’s found his niche, grabbed a few high profile clients, and discovered what really makes social media tick now that the gigantic, enthusiastic wave has broken up.

Jörgen came to London 13 years ago, having worked in recruitment for several tech companies back in his native Sweden, with the express intention of staying for one year. “I never looked back,” he says.

It took him a little while to get to social media though, considering it barely existed as we know it today. Instead, he began Undercover Recruiter. Initially a personal project and portfolio, it is now “the world’s largest recruitment blog” thanks to its informative tone, sharable content and heavy emphasis on the social side. It is a place for people to find information on job hunting, from the very basic (e.g. how to prepare for an interview) to the watercooler-esque (e.g. the 10 types of people you meet in every office).

Since 2010, he has been working with a small team in the form of Link Humans, a digital marketing agency. Originally born out of the name LinkedIn, it has since broken away from its inspiration and progressed in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Such a change has been necessary, given the progression of the media itself.

“Everyone and their dog wanted social media,” he says of the 2010-11 global craze - he doesn't believe that even now companies know properly how to use it, nor do they respect it. “Brands have ruined social,” he says. While it used to be a numbers game, and companies with 100,000s of followers could run the game, now it requires a far more nuanced approach. Companies must create content, share relevant content and market it through a matrix.

Far better, in Jörgen’s opinion, that people take the time to learn from each other. “Social media does not work in isolation.” he says, both within a company and between companies “It goes through recruiters, internal knowledge management, sales - it’s working it’s way through the system of a business”. That’s why he’s also the creator of Social Media London (or #SMLONDON for more twitter-savvy among us).

Originally a meetup group, it’s now the biggest Social Media Group in the UK and have hosted around 40-50 events and conferences. They are currently getting ready for their 3rd flagship conference, an evening of speeches followed by ping pong at Farringdon’s Bounce Bar on November 9th. (use the Promo Code "Kobi" at http://socialmedialondon.co.uk for a 50% Discount!)

With big name speakers promised, the idea is to inspire thought leadership among the 150 or so audience members.

Link Humans has matured with their clients and with social media itself. As we discuss, Facebook was borne as an organic platform but became more of a pay-to-play atmosphere for brands, something all businesses have to take into account.

Now Link Humans works with big name electronic distributors, offering B2B and (Jörgen’s speciality) recruitment help. As he puts it, “for a small company, we are spinning a lot of plates.”

NB - If you want to visit Social Media London, KSD podcast listeners get a 50% discount using the promo code "Kobi" book now via this link!

Lydia Wakefield appreciates the uncertainty of youth when it comes to professional routes. Having been through the education system herself, and then started her career there in higher education institutes across the UK, she understands the demands on graduates, or people younger and older than that, on selecting their careers.

Today on the podcast, Lydia and I discuss her work with IPSE, the community support it offers to freelancers, as well as what contract-workers old and young can do to maintain their professional standards and expectations.

“I have a mixed background, but it’s all within education and training,” Lydia says. Previously she had lived and worked in Nottingham, before moving back down to her native Somerset, where she worked for the University of Bath. Coaching MBA and Undergraduate students about their future prospects gave her a good indication about training and routes - and it surprised her that so few people knew about the many different progression paths available to people coming out of school.

One thing not a lot of graduates think about is starting off as self-employed. A degree is often seen as a means to an end, rather than by providing applicable skills that can transfer; as she says of the education system, “there’s too much focus on what you study, rather than on how you study”.

That’s not to say that education isn’t important. “A lot of industries prefer you to have qualifications, or certain certified skills,” she says. Again, knowing what you need to know, or what you need to learn (or what equipment, what tools you need) is one of the key weapons in the arsenal of the freelancer.

Soon enough, she found herself expanding on this role as the Education and Training Manager for IPSE. IPSE, on the basic level, provides training and support for freelance and contractors, whether that’s through providing documentation itself (like a template invoice), or just the advice on how to draw up a contract with an employer.

“No one has a career for life these days,” she tells me. The generation that would pick one thing and do it until they retire has given way to the more transient, migratory workforce. It’s totally possible for anyone with a bankable skill to become a self-employed contractor, she explains, but it requires a little more nous than usual to survive.

One problem that freelancers commonly encounter is that they are being taken advantage of, and lack the employment rights to strength their tenuous positions. One way to combat this, she explains, it educating yourself with the right knowledge. Arts, Literacy, and Media sector workers lean heavily on freelance work - but while any courses they might take will teach them the finer aspects of their crafts, very few will teach them the business elements that they need to know to thrive; things like tax, or how to set up a business in the first place.

Another issue is the problem of value. Self-worth is hard to measure, harder still when you offer a service that is far less tangible than say, a product. She notes, “freelancers are talented individuals, that’s why they do what they do, that’s why they deserve to be valued.” The onus lies on the companies to not take advantage, or to overstep the boundaries of a pre-agreed contract, but also on the freelancer to better understand themselves and what they offer - and what they can reasonably expect.

We also discuss her resounding belief in the “No Free Work” attitude, as well as some recent corporate case studies that should cause any self-respecting freelancer some embarrassment. They dispel a few myths about freelancing, and emphasise that everybody needs to learn how to value themselves. In this day and age, “any industry can go self-employed”, she says. And with IPSE, it seems like they’d have all the clout they need to back themselves up.

In this episode of the podcast we are luck enough to have Manuel Frigerio of Maitre.

Maitré, is a widget that can be installed onto any website that gives you a viral mailing list. When people click to sign up and receive a special offer or competition, they are added to a waiting list. On this list they can see how many people are ahead of them, and how many people are behind them. If you want to climb the list you simply need to your friends to do the same.

This viral promotion has been inspired by the successes of Dropbox, Mundo et al. and since it’s launch in January has seen remarkable success. Some brands have used it to encourage thousands of users to sign up. In one success story, Manuel explains how one company managed a staggering 400,000 in 5 days, crashing the server entirely.

It’s success is based entirely on the trust of an inner circle. With a tweet, Facebook or LinkedIn post, a single user has access to a network of people that a company would do anything to have. There is nothing more powerful than a personal referral, and little more addictive than adding an air of competition to it.

Manuel knows Maitré is not the be all and end all, “it’s not magic, it’s just a tool,” thus it only works if people make it work for them, and offer interesting, exciting things to people who sign up. Manuel tells us that he is the “least techy person in the world”, which is why Maitré also allows clients to work on their own backend to the product. The resulting ingenuity (including some dropbox-esque mechanics) has far outstripped anything he could have imagined.

It’s great to have Alison of Avocado Social on the Kobestarr Digital Podcast! Alison is well known for her Social Media skills, both in terms of working with clients and with teaching courses and speaking. During my chat with her it was easy to see why.

Alison has been working in Social Media since 2008. She graduated with a degree in journalism at a time when the economic downturn unfortunately meant that it would be tougher than ever to get into the national papers. Alison’s resourcefulness took her to Twitter as a way of getting in touch with the journalists and the papers and then that lead to her proving to be invaluable to them from a Social Media point of view.

This lead on to work with big agencies and when companies asked for Social it tended to be Alison that fitted the bill. Her work in this time lead to working for big clients including helping to launch the Tesco Facebook page.

Avocado Social was born out of the desire to work with smaller clients on a more personal level.

Alison is due to launch her own online Social Media Course (It may be available depending on when you read this). We talk about how the idea for the course came about and how you guys can all view it!

I’m super pleased to have Matt Lerner from 500 Startups on the Kobestarr Digital Podcast!

I’d heard Matt speaking a couple of times and read numerous slide decks of his talking about Growth Hacking amongst other things. In terms of growing companies Matt’s experience is second to none. A key member of the Growth Team at Paypal in a period where the company grew ten times in 10 years means that his knowledge and insight greatly valued.

Matt talks about the mettle it takes to run a successful company and the different personalities involved at different stages of company growth.

It was great to hear a breakdown of the different levels of investment that can apply for and what it can take for companies to grow. This has been a particular knowledge blind spot for me.

Krishna is a super experienced online marketer who I have known for a year or after meeting her at a series of talks about My Digital Career.

She started off her career as a scientist and before moving into HR and then into marketing for large brands such as Guinness. She then set up her own company and found that she needed to be found online and the move into digital marketing came from a personal need.

This lead her into blogging, podcasts and online video, which she started doing around 11 years ago. This was at a time when most of the people that were using these tools were technical so Krishna was asked by people, who found her to be a lot more approachable, to help them with their content.

Krishna is keen to express the fact that she learns new technologies by playing around and researching with them rather than reading about them in books. As a result her insight is valuable from a user level.

Krishna had recently been speaking at the New Media Europe conference and we spend some time talking about the sessions from the weekend and in particular Krishna’s session about Snapchat for business.

I should say that at the start of this episode I told him that this was going to be episode 13 or 15 but I was wrong. Sorry!

We wax lyrical about General Assembly, as that is how I met Howard in the first place on one of his courses. GA is a great place to check out for a huge range of courses. If you want to learn new cool things then please go to the General Assembly site, there are courses all over the world for your edification. If you are in London please do sign up to one of Howard’s Classes.

The first class that I went to with Howard was the Growth Hacking one – this lead into tonnes of conversation about growth hacking, its origins and how to keep on top of it.

We also spend a good bit of time chatting about the company that Howard started yo Adludio help global brands look incredible on mobile phone. They work with Nike, Unilever, Heinz and Reckitt Benckiser.

Adludio do some really innovative things in the world of mobile advertising and some of the concepts that he described made me think “Hey – that could really work with me!” Normally I blank out adverts but what Adludio do would be hard to ignore so I think that they must be winning!

In this episode of the Kobestarr Digital Podcast I talk to Lu Li of Blooming Founders.

She is a Chinese born, German entrepreneur who now lives in London! Lu initially worked for large companies in management consulting and FMCG. She started two businesses one in Zurich and then one in London shortly after moving here a couple years.

We talk about feeling unsatisfied in her initial jobs despite them being the types of “good jobs” that all of our parents would love us to have. This dissatisfaction lead to the starting of her entrepreneurial career that began with two companies that unfortunately or maybe fortunately no longer exist. This brings us to Blooming Founders which promotes female entrepreneurs via events, programs and an community building. If you’re a lady or know a lady who is thinking of starting your own company please do get in contact with them

Lu has compiled an impressive list of 66 female founders from all across the globe who have contributed to her book “Dear Female Founder”. Each chapter is a letter from one of the contributors that starts with the words “Dear Female Founder…” targeted at a younger self or other young women with the aim of imparting their experiences and knowledge.

The book is of course for us men too! Everyone needs to be part of the conversation here.

Dear Female founder comes out in the middle of September so in the meantime please do sign up to her mailing list on the Blooming Founders website

Shoprocket is a super easy way to get any website up and running with an ecommerce platform with a few lines of code. There’s no need to go back to a developer to do this.

Daniel is the head of Marketing at Shoprocket. We talk about his background and life and education. He started his own businesses whilst at school trying to augment his pocket money by doing odd jobs. This turned into making websites, which actually proved very successful.

If you are interested in how this all works please do visit the Shoprocket website and do get in touch with Daniel using the links below!

In this episode we have Laura Hurren who is the Executive Director of BNI Central London and Italy.

BNI is a formalised business network and typically has meetings based around breakfast or lunchtime. Laura and I had just come from a meeting in BNI Islington where she had a starring role in the agenda!

We talk in this episode about why referrals are such a powerful way of recommending business and how if you can get into a good networking group then that could be a great way of getting business.

Laura first came across a BNI chapter whilst in USA on a business trip in the USA. She brought it back to UK after testing the waters to see if the concept would potentially sink or swim on this side of the pond.

BNI is coming into its 20th Year in the UK and at the time we recorded was going to have a large conference with over 700 delegates – all BNI chapter members.

If you are interested in BNI as a way to expand your business please do let get in touch with Laura via the links below.

This Episode features Mark Colgan of YellowO an Inbound Marketing Agency based in London!

We have a good chat about what Inbound Marketing is and the “Death of Cold Calls”! Were cold calls ever a thing? I cannot believe that they were!

Mark’s background and education was in marketing and worked initially in recruitment. It was whilst doing this that he took it upon himself to learn the ins and outs of Inbound Marketing using the amazing training that Hubspot gives you all for free.

Once Mark learnt the benefits Inbound Marketing he started working making sites for friends and family and all for free with the sole purpose of building up his portfolio.

This portfolio built up to Mark feeling confident enough to apply for jobs and eventually landed the role as the first Head of Digital for a Company! Starting with a blank slate in 2012 was a great position to be in for the start of his Digital Marketing career at a time when companies had much less inclination to take on board digital marketing!

Mark runs YellowO which helps companies establish themselves online in a far more holistic manner than simply a new website is needed or simple help with social media. We talk about landing pages and the importance of content and SEO and everything to do with Inbound marketing.

Listen out for a great story about a Personal Trainer client of his that got quick ROI with a campaign that they set up, it’s really cool!

Jackie Fast of Slingshot Sponsorship

Jackie Fast started out life as a mathematician in Vancouver, Canada. She bought a plane ticket at 4am one morning and Canada for a 1-2 month tour of Europe with the first destination being London… and 12 years later has never left

After working at the Direct Marketing Association part time she started up their Commercial and Partnership Division as Sponsorship Manager. Her target was £50,000 in her first year and smashed it bringing in over £100, 000 in her first year and £500,000 in year three!

She became notorious and headhunted by several companies to do the same for them but decided to start Slingshot Sponsorship instead.

We talk about how sponsorship is not just about money – because you would get advertising money from people that you don’t like. There is no way that you can get sponsorship from people that you don’t like. It’s a partnership. You should be assessing everything that you can offer and a company and that they can offer you. Distribution for example might be a something that is difficult to negotiate for new businesses, so partnering with a company that could help you with distribution would be a great place to start.

I was quite surprised to see that less well established companies should consider the sponsorship route. A huge part of the process is establishing the value in the assets that you have to offer, you may be surprised to realise that you are more valuable than you think!

If you are looking for other ways to monetise your company then sponsorship would be a great place. There’s no better place to start than with Jackie Fast and the guys at Slingshot Sponsorship

On this we speak with Rik Lomas! Rik is currently based in the USA and is working on building up SuperHi and going into the

This was the first episode I recorded aaaages ago. It was really cool catching up with Rik, he taught me how code! I took a Ruby on Rails course with the now sadly defunct training company Steer. The course was ace and I learned so much – now sadly forgotten… boo…

He started learning to code by making websites, even when his computer wasn’t connected to the Internet! We talk about his first job making the Charlotte Church back when she became big whilst working a digital agency.

Rik learned and developed his coding skills on the job and to get new jobs and including working with a few startups including Steer, which is where I met him!

Steer was a coding school and came and went for him and he decided to go their separate ways.

I spoke with Cathy White, Communications and Marketing Manager of Seedcamp on International Womens Day earlier this year (2016 for those of you that are late to this game!). We start the chat about Holly Brockwell who started the online tech magazine Gadgette, which is just the best name ever for anything and is geared towards women. We chat about Cathy’s schooling and going into her first paid job with a Tech PR Agency. We talk about the distinction between traditional PR and how it no longer really exists in that format anymore. Modern PR should be combined in with other parts of the modern marketing matrix and should be data driven and show measurable ROI. Cathy is an advocate of understanding your Buyer Persona and understanding your where they hang out online and "In Real Life" - IRL. Choosing the publications and blogs that you want to feature in should be more focused than trying to appear simply in the “The Times” for example. Cathy is now based at Seedcamp and loves working with early stage startups giving them advice on their marketing and encouraging them to "bootstrap" and make the most of their early funding. I was really pleased to hear that there was a more holistic approach to the way that Seedcamp supports the companies that they invest in. There’s no sink and swim mentality there folks! Cathy is also a Podcaster and is director GeekGirl Meetup UK. if you are interested in what she is up to please head to all of the links below if you want to hear more from her. Which of course I recommend you do!! Head to her twitter - @cathywhite10GeekGirls Meetup UK Website , Twitter - @GGMUK and the GeekGirl Meetup UK Podcast And of course Seedcamp Website and Twitter - @seedcamp If you want the PR Hacks that Cathy was talking about head to the Resources Section of Seedcamp!Shout-outs Huge shout out the Tony and Jay at GL Productions for the excellent editing skills and to Mighty People to the music that you can hear now. Thanks everybody for listening! If you want a free marketing assessment just head over to Kobestarr.io/free. You’ve got nothing to lose, everything to gain! Bye!

Welcome to the 3rd ever episode of the Kobestarr Digital Podcast. Woo!

Who is James Gill?

We have great chat with James Gill of sweet analytics and so much more company GoSquared based in London. It was nice see how he Co-Founded GoSquared with his friends when he was 14 when most of us would be scared of our impending exams. The original idea has pivoted multiple times and is a good testament to being ready to make the changes needed to suit the business and opportunities presented to you.

On Content Marketing

We talk about the merits of providing fee content to educate your audience and making sure that you strive to provide value. James and crew would rather produce one piece of high quality content per month than 8 shorter ones. Producing content at this level is all about education. “People can detect a salesy post very quickly”. The key is to provide thought provoking and helpful content so people keep you in the minds. They might not be in a position to buy from you there and then, A lot of the larger customers have been recommended GoSquared to their larger customers as a basis of reading these blog posts or have moved into larger companies that then use them as a result of this engaging content. There was a good conversation about giving new users that “Wow” moment when people first engage with your product. If you get this wrong you may find it difficult to get them back at a later date. It seems that we people are so time poor at the moment you really need to make those first impressions count! Key Question of the day - "what did you do with your 5 weeks at University?"

Episode #001 features Vincent Dignan! I met Vincent about a year ago when he was speaking at an event in London where he just proceeded to give away all of his secrets about growth hacking and how to grow your company quickly.

I was surprised at how candid he was and He’s now gathered quite a following doing them! As we spoke he was set to do his second tour of the US from LA to New York and every place in between.

I should note that we talk about the haters who have found him on social media and details about the murky roots of growth hacking. This segment does contain a few strong words and talk of a more adult nature. I would normally cut these out but it’s an interesting part of his story that I think is totally important to share!

I have a Clean version of this episode so If you are of a fairer disposition please download and listen to that one – it will be available right now.

Episode #001 features Vincent Dignan! I met Vincent about a year ago when he was speaking at an event in London where he just proceeded to give away all of his secrets about growth hacking and how to grow your company quickly.

I was surprised at how candid he was and He’s now gathered quite a following doing them! As we spoke he was set to do his second tour of the US from LA to New York and every place in between.

We launch our first ever episode of the Kobestarr Digital Podcast on the same day that Vincent was launching his first book together with Co Author Austin Allred who Vincent Claims “is a far better growth hacker than he is”

I should note that we talk about the haters who have found him on social media and details about the murky roots of growth hacking. This segment does contain a few strong words and talk of a more adult nature. I would normally cut these out but it’s an interesting part of his story that I think is totally important to share!

I have a Clean version of this episode so If you are of a fairer disposition please download and listen to that one – it will be available right now.

Hello there and welcome to Episode #000 of the Kobestarr Digital podcast!

My name is Kobi and if you are hearing this ahead of time this is just as super short intro to say that the Kobestarr Digital Podcast will be launching properly on the 10th of May. I wanted to give you all a chance to get used to my voice, subscribe to the podcast ahead of time, to hear what kind of episodes I have lined up and, if i'm honest, to give iTunes a chance to get this all listed!

So the Kobestarr Digital podcast will feature longform interviews conversations with people who I have met since starting Kobestarr Digital as a Digital Marketing Agency. It's a business podcast with an ever so slight bias towards the world of Digital Marketing be it Inbound Marketing, Growth Hacking, Social Media Marketing, SEO, Content Marketing.

I have a lot of really interesting girls and guys lined up from freelancers through to those at the pinnacle of large businesses who are ready to share their stories with you.

If you do know anyone who would be interesting to hear from please do let me know by sending an email to podcast@kobestarr.io.

Please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes in anticipation of the first episodes dropping in 10th May and come and find me personally on the Twitter @Kobestarr and The agency Kobestarr Digital can be found @kobestarrDigi.

I just want to say thanks to GLPro and to Helen Zaltzman for helping me get the podcast up and running, to all my past present and future guests and to you guys for listening and telling your friends and subscribing on iTunes Ahem Subscribe! and tell your friends to subscribe!